Election Date: Courts Comprise Human Souls

March 2012

by maurice maina

After Kibaki, Kenyans Grappling Over Who's Next Best Gamble.

Kenya is at crossroads. The kind, of crossroads, where you do not have road signs.

It may be a first of any country, world over, for the country to, for instance, produce the first presidency, in form of a person or persona, charged of crimes against humanity; if, for example, Uhuru Kenyatta or William Ruto, wins.

Polls have indicated this possibility.

To observers, commenting on, politics is shrouded with an eerie of ‘gun for hire.’ They are convinced that ‘for every action, there is an equal and parallel action!’

The recent, street wise, works of art have ‘strong’ messages meant to change Kenyan voters from engaging violent acts.

[Street art; sample pictured above along Nairobi's Kenyatta avenue]

Such acts caused a thousand plus deaths and hundreds of thousands displaced in 2008 election mayhem. Kenyans, it appears, should have more to worry about.

But, and curiously, it is the election date that seems to pre occupy the minds of many. Sections of thinkers, and commentators, have pointed the folly of this.

IEBC, the (constitutional) electoral body, however, failed in its body language. It appears, from its available reports, that the president’s and P.M’s office are miles, rather, kilometers apart. FYI they just face each other along the Kenya’s ‘informal: government street’.

You, also, find parliament and its offices; foreign affairs, police, education and finance departments in the same street. Kenyatta International Conference center has its physical address along the same street.

IEBC published a report that indicated a disharmony: endorsed by president. Disowned by the P.M. No one among the two, in other words, seems to agree on many things. Not least, the election date.

The problem was recently pointed to me by a buddy of mine, Elton Mwangi, who after ordering everything listed at the locals menu, boldly stated: ‘after Kibaki, the standards are just a little higher compared with Moi in his ‘dying’ days.

‘But’, he added perhaps also curiously, ‘the role of courts is a major determinant.’ He took a swig of juice and stared, questioningly, at me.

‘That juice seems to hack you’, I suggested in jest.

He ignored me completely. ‘It seems, apparently, that the courts are never universally popular.

And for a good reason, it seems, they never will’. He concluded.

'Why is that?' I asked.

He lost himself to a sofa treat. Not that it mattered. He, probably, had a point.

When he woke up he refused any political discourse.